1. Field of Invention
The present invention relates to cellular phones and in particular to the transmission of data and pictures simultaneous to voice.
2. Description of Related Art
With the recent popularity of taking pictures with cellular phones (mobile phones) comes the need to efficiently transmit picture while talking on the cellular phone. Presently Multi-Media Services (MMS) use a General Packet Radio Service (GPRS) to transmit non-voice data. Independent of what mobile phone service is used, the GPRS does not allow the transmission of data simultaneous to voice. When a mobile phone user wants to transfer pictures or other data files while talking to another user, two phone calls are necessary, one for the voice conversation and a second for transmitting data. The second of the two calls will be an additional charge. The two calls are required even if the same GPRS system is used to transmit both voice and the data.
In U.S. Pat. No. 6,112,084 (Sicher, et al.) a method and system are directed to doing a simultaneous transfer of data and voice during a call between a mobile station having a Digital Simultaneous Voice and Data (DSVD) modem and a radio telecommunications network having a mobile switching center. U.S. Pat. No. 6,185,196 (Mademann) is directed to a method for transmitting data packets in a cellular mobile radio network to provide for voice and data transmission in which one traffic channel (TCH) is reserved for the data. In U.S. Pat. No. 6,532,372 (Hwang) a method and apparatus are directed to providing data communication between an external electronic device such as a personal computer and a communication device such as a mobile phone.
In FIG. 1A is shown a block diagram of prior art of the communication connection between a first mobile phone 10, or cellular phone, used by talker A and a second mobile phone 20, or cellular phone, used by talker B. A radio signal 11 is transmitted from mobile phone 10 to a receiving antenna tower 12. From there the radio signal 11 is coupled to a Base Station Subsystem (BSS) 13, which contains a Base Transceiver Station (BTS) 30 and a Base Station Controller (BSC) 31, shown in FIG. 1B. The BTS 30 contains a radio transceiver, which communicates by radio signals with a mobile phone 10 and couples the communication with the mobile phone 10 to the Base System Controller (BSC) 31. Multiple BTS transceivers are controlled by the BSC 31, which provide allocation and release of radio channels and the handoff between cells as talker A using the first mobile phone 10 moves between cells.
Continuing to refer to FIG. 1B, the BSC 13 communicates with a Multimedia Function Service (MFS) 32, which couples packets of digital data to and from a Serving GPRS Support Node (SGSN) 34 that allows digital data to be sent between mobile phones 10 and 20. The BSC 13 also communicates with Transcoder (TC) 33.
Contained within the TC 33 is a Voice Coder known herein as a vocoder. The vocoder translates the voice signal from the mobile phone 10 and 20 into a time domain 37 signal that can be sent through In Path Equipment (IPE) 14 and the Network 15 coupling the communications between talker B using mobile phone 10 and talker B using mobile phone 20. The vocoder combines packetized groups of speech from the transmitting mobile phone 10 and 20 to be coupled in the time domain 37 through the IPE 14 and the Network 15 to a second vocoder, which then packetizes the speech sent by the transmitting mobile phone into packets that are sent to the receiving mobile phone 10 and 20.
In FIG. 2A is shown a block diagram of the transmission (TX) function of the Discontinuous Transmission (DTX) function of the prior art for a mobile phone 10 and 20 sending a voice signal from a mobile phone 10 and 20. The circuits that support the DTX are located in the mobile phones 10 and 20 and the vocoder located within the Transcoder (TC) 33. The transmitting TX SCR Handler (Transmission Source Controlled Rate Handler) 40, which includes a Speech Encoder, a Voice Activated Detector (VAD) and a Comfort Noise TX Function, couples information bits (Info Bits) 42 of a 20 ms speech frame and an SP flag 43 to a transmitting TX Radio Subsystem 41. The TX Radio Subsystem 41 includes a Channel Encoding function and an Sp Flag Monitoring function. The SP Flag indicates a speech frame is being transmitted if the flag has a logical “1” value, or a SID (Silence Indicator) frame if the flag value is a logical “0”. The TX SCR Handler 40 and the Radio Subsystem 41 forms a part of the mobile phone 10 and 20, and the BSS 13.
Continuing to refer to FIG. 2A, in the TX SCR Handler the speech encoder digitally codes the analog voice signal into a digital form to be sent to the receiving mobile phone. The VAD detects when there is voice from the user of the sending mobile phone so that the transmitting voice signal can be captured and communicated to a receiving phone. The comfort noise transmission function provides a signal so that a receiving user knows that mobile phone call is still connected even though there is a pause in conversation. The channel encoding function packetizes the digitized voice and places each voice packet into available communication slots to be sent to the receiving mobile phone 10 and 20.
The Voice Activity Detector operates continuously and determines whether an input signal from a sending phone contains speech. The VAD controls the overall operation of the transmission of a phone signal indirectly by means of the SP Flag. When speech is detected, the speech encoder output frame is coupled by means of the Info Bits 42 to the TX radio Subsystem 41 and marked with a SP Flag=1. When a particular burst of speech ends, the VAD switches to an inactive speech state. After speech ends and number of consecutive frames (N+1) are transmitted, a new updated SID frame is available for insertion into the transmission of the signal from the sending phone. The first N speech encoder output frames after a speech burst is passed to the TX Radio Subsystem 41 with SP Flag=1, called a “hangover period”. After the “hangover period” at the end of a speech burst, a SID frame is computed and coupled to the TX Radio Subsystem 41. The TX SCR Handler 40 then continues to compute SID frames as long, as the VAD is inactive, that are coupled to the TX Radio Subsystem 41, marked with SP Flag=0 indicating that there is no voice signal from the sending phone.
In FIG. 2B is shown a block diagram of the receiving transmission function (RX) of the Discontinuous Transmission (DTX) function of the prior art for a mobile phone 10 and 20 receiving a voice signal from a sending mobile phone 10 and 20. This portion of the DTX 50 and 51 forms a part of the mobile phone 10 and 20, and the BSS 13. The RX Access Network 50 for receiving transmission contains a SID frame detection and an error concealment and detection. The RX Handler 51 contains a speech decoder, error concealment and comfort noise generation. The speech decoder translates the digitally transmitted speech into an analog signal to be coupled to the user of the receiving phone, and errors caused by disturbances in the environment that are not recovered are marked and handled separately by the vocoder (voice coder). Information bits (Info Bits) 52, SID 53, BFI (Bad Frame Indication) 54 and TAF (Time Alignment Flag) 55 signals are coupled to the RX SCR Handler (Receiving Transmission Source Controlled Rate Handler) 51 from the RX Access Network 50.
In the prior art sending a picture by means of the mobile phone system required a separate phone call from a phone call in which there was speech communications between two mobile phones. A method of providing a capability to transmit pictures taken with a cellular phone simultaneous with voice communications to a receiving location without the use of separate cellular phone calls and separate charges is needed in support of the integration of the cellular phone and digital camera functions.